Wednesday, August 24, 2016

Comic Con, Ghostbusters, and What Women Wear

This past weekend, I attended Comic Con Chicago. The panels I made it to were fun and informative, including one with X-Files cast members, one by the creator of the Facebook Page Ladies Geeking Out on gender and geek culture, and another on the intersection between film, books, television, and video games.

Seeing all the costumes reminded me of one of the big reasons I loved the new Ghostbusters movie. Not only did I laugh through all of it, I appreciated seeing women on screen dressed appropriately for their work. These women didn't head out to fight ghosts and monsters in bikinis, leotards, or skimpy superhero outfits. They were practical. They wore coveralls. I enjoyed seeing that added to the range of types of dress and characters portrayed at Comic Con.

Along those lines, at the geek culture panel, I learned about a great blog called Repair Her Armor. It's to help all those female superheroes out there forced to go into battle with so much skin exposed. Also, at the Hawkeye Initiative, you can see "How to fix every Strong Female Character pose in superhero comics: replace the character with Hawkeye doing the same thing." It's hilarious and highlights the differences in how these characters are drawn.

I also got to see the car from one of my favorite 70s TV shows. Do you know whose this is?